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Thursday, 20 August 2015

Tutorial: 5-minute easiest thread organizer EVER!

Hi y'all!!

Here's a tutorial that I've been itching to share on MCW for a while now. It all started when I started looking around for a cheap way to store my thread spools efficiently.

Now I am no seamstress but I do have a small collection of spools of various colours that come in handy from time to time. Previously I had been storing these in an old shoe box. I tried a number of different homemade thread organisers including the one where you stick bamboo skewers in a foam board and then hot-glue them in and then frame it. But most of these took too much time and the eventual result was not as efficient as I would've liked.

I needed something that is compact yet roomy that can be stashed away and then taken out when needed, and that can show me my thread spools at a glance.

Enter the Box-Lid Thread Organizer!

This is a super quick organizer to make using only 4 things you've probably all got lying around your home. And if you are as clumsy as I am, it should take you all of 5 -- yes, FIVE -- minutes!

So without further ado, let's grab those supplies.

You will need:

A cardboard shoe-box lid
A long length of twine (I used cotton twine but you could use anything like jute or even nylon)
A double-hole punch
Scissors

That's it. Now I did take plenty of photographs for this to reduce verbosity. You will find that this makes it pretty self-explanatory.

Step 1

Put the lid flat on a table, hollow side up, and punch a series of holes close together along the two lengths of the lid.

Tip: it helps to hold the hole punch on its side and push it down onto the cardboard edge. Then lift the lid and jiggle the punch deeper down the edge. Otherwise you might end up with a shallow hole like I did initially.

Step 2
Once both the long sides have been punched through, start threading your twine in a zig-zag manner as shown in the pictures.

You will end up with something like this.

Step 3
Knot the twine at the top. Now back-track along your zig-zag, pulling and making it taut as you go down to the original threading hole.

Once here, keep the twine taut and snip off from the spool, leaving about 6 inches in excess. Now knot this end to the box too, making sure your zig-zags are still fairly taut.

You should end up with something like this.

That's it! Your threat organizer is ready!

Now fill it up with your spools and see how they nestle in neatly side by side.

Once full, stand back and admire your handy work.

Here I am going all ninja on it and flipping it upside down. No spools lost, woohoo!!